Moving On Plus One
by SadaraLochlan
Summary: So much has changed in Colonel Kira's life with the end of the Dominion War; and returning to Deep Space Nine only brings more changes.


Kira Nerys, Colonel in the Bajoran Militia, stood ramrod straight just inside the entryway to her quarters, barely registering the soft hiss as the door gently closed behind her. She felt a hurricane; thoughts a whirling maelstrom of activity while her emotional core felt calm and somehow at peace. The fiery redhead pondered that last part and felt she owed it to the Prophets that somehow, when things around her were a mess, she managed to hold herself together.

She knew she couldn't just stand there, rooted in place like an old Oak all night, but she felt paralyzed to move, as if she were separated from space and time, existing in some surreal universe of her own. It would have been mercifully quiet and peaceful there save for the tornadic thoughts let loose in her mind.

She'd overheard Quark earlier in his bar muttering something about "the more things change, the more they stay the same." The slim Bajoran found that at the moment she couldn't agree less. So much in her own life had changed that she couldn't pinpoint many things that hadn't changes. Some were welcome changes, like the end of the Dominion War. Others weren't so welcome. The O'Briens' return to Earth had left an ache in Kira's heart that she couldn't have imagined would be so profound. They had welcomed her into their home as family and she would miss watching little Kirayoshi grow up. Sure, they would visit the station from time and time and perhaps she would visit Earth one day, but it wasn't the same.

Her spirituality had made the loss of Captain Sisko easier to accept. Perhaps it was because of her spirituality that it hadn't felt like the loss that their other friends and comrades perceived it as. It had taken Kira some time to accept Sisko as the Emissary, but now she was confident that he was still carrying out the will of the Prophets. He was just doing so in another form or manner than she one she could easily understand. And that was enough for her.

It was Odo's departure that had shocked the new station commander the most. They had loved each other; and despite knowing that Odo wanted desperately to learn more about his origins, it still seemed surprising that he left so quickly to be with them. She understood his reasons, and the exchange did help bring about the end of the war. Still, some part of her felt that he seemed just a little too eager to leave his life on Deep Space Nine behind him. Perhaps it was just her imagination.

Dragging herself to her couch, she slowly lowered herself onto it, letting out a sigh of relief as she sank deep into the soft cushions and her head drifted back. Her life was about to change again, thanks to the requisite and routine examinations of officers returning from away missions, particularly the lengthy one she'd been on with the Cardassian Liberation Front.

Had Odo remained, Kira would have had to confess that she and Legate Damar had been intimate on a number of occasions during the rebellion. She had the courage to tell him, but now that he was back among his own kind, she felt it was best to leave him be with fond, untarnished memories.

As for what happened with Damar, never in a million years would she have seen that coming. A Cardassian of all species; and particularly the Cardassian who had gunned down Ziyal. Even now, intense and conflicting feelings warred within Kira. As time in the rebellion passed, Kira had witnessed how much Damar had changed. He was no longer Dukat's young and brutal thug. In that thug's place was a wiser, more mature man who had finally taken ownership of his own faults and demons. A leader with vision and direction had replaced the lost and foundering drunk from before. While she still struggled to completely forgive Damar for Ziyal's death, he had become someone she could admire and respect. She had been there once, fighting to free her people from Cardassian oppression; and Damar had done the same to free Cardassians from the Dominion and in doing so, finally realized how Cardassians needed to change.

It was a damned shame Damar was no longer around to implement all the changes and reforms he'd spoken so passionately about in Mila's cellar. Kira wondered what would become of Cardassia now in his absence. They had not loved each other, but Kira and Damar had admired and respected each other. Admiration and respect that had grown into a physical attraction and longing for each other. Like the O'Briens, and Sisko, and Odo, Kira found that she'd miss Damar too.

Her gaze lowered to her middle. It shouldn't have surprised her to find that Damar had left a part of himself with her. After all, Cardassian/Bajoran hybrids came easily as far as hybrids went. It seemed fitting for a new Cardassian/Bajoran hybrid to join the universe at the dawn of a new Cardassia. Perhaps this child would find acceptance in ways that Ziyal and others like her never had. Ziyal would have wanted that; just like she would have wanted Cardassians and Bajorans to bury the hatchet. It was the one thought that kept the guilt at bay when life flashed a reminder sign that Damar was Ziyal's murderer. But Ziyal would have wanted peace rather than the maintenance of old grudges.

And so Kira chose to look forward to her baby. Her hands lifted off the couch to rest lovingly on her still flat abdomen and a warm smile touched her red lips. A sting of regret coursed through her that Damar would never know about their baby. The irony that he had gunned down a Cardassian/Bajoran hybrid and would now be the father of one was not lost on her, but she suspected such a child would have been welcome to him now.

Kira's smile widened into an amused grin as she imagined what their child would be like. Not timid, she was certain. Almost certainly to be a handful and Kira found she couldn't wait to find out.

As if to confirm her suspicions, Kira broke into a sneezing fit.


End file.
